longduran

Longduran is a constructed language (conlang) used in speculative fiction and worldbuilding. It originated in online conlang communities in the early 2000s and has since been expanded by hobbyists and writers. In its canonical setting, Longduran is spoken by the Longdu, a coastal people in a fictional archipelago.

Linguistically, Longduran is primarily agglutinative with suffixing and some prefixing. It follows a subject–object–verb (SOV) order in neutral clauses and employs a rich case system to mark grammatical roles. Nouns inflect for number and case, while verbs encode aspect, mood, tense, and agreement with participants through affixes.

The phonology centers on a moderate inventory of stops, fricatives, and nasals, with vowel length distinctions and limited tone. The writing system uses a Latin-derived alphabet with diacritics to indicate vowel length and certain consonant qualities. There is also an optional syllabary used in ceremonial texts.

Longduran features a growing body of reference materials, including grammars, dictionaries, and phrasebooks, created by community members for learning and storytelling. It is commonly used in online fiction, role-playing, and language-learning experiments, and serves as a case study in collaborative conlang development. See also conlang, constructed language, language creation communities.